There are some North-Eastern electoral rolls which are free to browse on FamilySearch although not indexed yet (mostly Northumberland and mostly the early part of the 20th century):
https://familysearch.org/search/imag...8635/waypoints
Also includes a few parish registers etc.
Ancestry has poll books and electoral registers for England up to 1893, which are searchable, but of course most people didn't have the vote in those days.
http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=2410
I believe that findmypast is currently working on digitising the electoral registers (i.e. historical, but more recent than 1893) but not sure when this is due to go online.
I forgot to mention before that FreeBMD has most of the BMD indexes available for free now:
http://www.freebmd.org.uk/
Also quite a few of the register offices in the North East have their own sites:
Darlington
Durham
Gateshead
Newcastle
Sunderland
Tees Valley (Middlesbrough)
Also North East BMD may be helpful:
http://www.northeastbmd.org.uk/